Universal chief may badger Jobs for iPod royalties - Page 2

Because I remember we had such a charge on tapes in germany (or might still have), and it allowed you to copy music. At least from radio, but I think also from anything else. If it woulnd't, well, then what the hell would apple be paying for?

That was my initial reaction too.
It's an industry of spoiled rich kids. The money is huge. Compare the record industry to Boeing or Cisco or some company that makes a complex product. All the record companies have to do is promote. They have a simple distribution network and in-place deals. A company like Boeing has to develop and support a network of thousands of vendors and millions of parts. They have to deal with compliance issues. They have to negotiate every sale. When they see how easy the record industry has it they must be kicking themselves.
It's surprising more companies don't enter the industry, like Sony did.
You think baseball players make a lot of money? Talk to a true rock star or a record executive.

The fact that music companies haven't caught on to the fact that many people will think like this is ridiculous. This arrangement doesn't make piracy "legal", but it certainly does serve to legitimise piracy in the eyes of many. It pisses me off how dumb some music execs can be.

Do you have any idea how many record labels there are? If it's so easy, why don't you do it?

There's not much legal about allofmp3. It looks like the site is going to be shut down.

How do you know I haven't.

If you need me to clarify my point, I meant companies with working capital. I have lots of ideas. I don't have any money. Sony did. I didn't mean private citizens, I meant companies with resources. Are you one of those people that needs everything spelled out? Or were you just taking a pot shot at me?

Certainly sounds like blackmail to me... If Universal get a deal, surely all the other record companies will want a deal too... I don't see Apple giving in, and I imagine that Universal quite like the existing money they're getting from the ITS...

It's true, I don't know you haven't tried it. I did think of adding a "maybe you have?" at the end of my post…


Whilst I did quote just one part of your post, I was responding more to the idea behind your post as a whole. You refer to the record industry as an industry of "spoiled rich kids", but that serves to ignore the hundreds, possibly thousands of smaller "independent" record labels, and to diminish the large amount of hard work done by the "normal" employees, sub-contractors and artists of major record labels. I don't think that it's quite as easy as you think it is to create a successful record label.

Consumer backlash? It took nearly four years to American voters to backlash against Congress! Technology is too complicated for most consumers (as politics and world events is for voters) we are all just a bunch of sheep that craze our way to any slaughter house corporate America points us to.

Personally, I'm pretty offended by Morris' comments. In fact, I'm outraged. How dare he call me a thief.

Is anyone aware of any type of organized protest against this moron? It doesn't take too much publiciity these days to force a retraction.

Agreed. The problem is, that this kind of "royalty"/"piracy tax" is quite common around the world.

There is not any stolen music on my 4GB iPod. Why should my money go to pay Universal for nothing? Does this give me the legal right to steal a Universal album for every iPod I buy?

Universal...
Read My Lips...

* * * F U C K O F F * * *

Here is a letter I just sent to UMG;

"Hi. I just read an article about your CEO, Doug Morris wanting Apple to pay your company royalties because in his words, "Ipods are just repository for stolen music, and they [Apple] know it"

I am offended that your CEO called me a thief. I do not steal music. Your company should be paying Apple, because I only buy your CD's to feed my ipod. Doug Morris is a pompous fool, and I am offended and angry.

My family will be visiting Orlando next week, and I think we will cross off Universal from our list of places I'll spend money in. I hope Steve Jobs stands up to your bullying. A company does not deserve to make money when they call their customers thieves."

i'm sure it will do no good, but I feel better about it. I'm sure no one with any power will ever read it, and I may not have gotten everyting right, but they should get the jist of it, even if it just goes to some lowly e-mail reader......

Frank D.

There's no stolen music on my 2 - 2GB nanos either.

Maybe I'll just stop buying Unversal lables. Maybe that will make me feel better.

Now I do know a person who uses a sandisk sansa... I don't believe his music is all purchased. Go after sandisk universal!

Reading your post just made me retarded.

No way Jobs gives these guys iPod royalties.

Ugh.

This is actually great! If it happens I would be acquiring a license for every bit of intellectual property that could fit my Ipod! And only for a dollar?!?!?! I mean, how can universal dispute the licensing of what you have in your Ipod if you already payed them in that matter when you acquired the device.

There are lots of places where you pay some fee for xeroxing and that covers intellectual property you would be infringing otherwise.

Excuse my non native english.

I don't see why so many are pointing the finger at UMG. Sure, they were bad for accepting the offer made to them by microsoft. But UMG didn't come to microsoft, microsft went to them. As indicated here, http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seatt...l?surround=lfn

Microsoft is the bigger villain here, NOT UMG.

So UMG accepted Microsoft's offer, and they think, "hey, if microsoft is wants to pay us, let's see if Apple will do the same thing"

You are demonstrating very well why these initiatives are totally counter-productive. They are not providing you with a license. The measures are intended to help alleviate the financial impact of piracy.

The fact that most people view these sorts of levies and taxes as a legitimisation of piracy demonstrates that record companies really didn't think things through properly.

If you buy a Zune, that doesn't mean you've bought the right to everything Universal have published. If you buy a blank CD in a country that taxes blank media to compensate publishing companies, that doesn't give you the legal right to pirate music. The existence of the tax doesn't obviate copyright law.

In some cases like photocopying it is actually legalizing the copy of copyrighted materials (for academic purposes) at least in some countries. In those cases the state collects the tax and redistributes it among publishers.
This is a deal between the company that owns a bunch of intellectual property and the one that sells you a device that could play that material. I am shure it is not their intention to legitimate piracy in this case but it is still an argument. After all you would be apying a fee to compensate for piracy when you buy the device.

These thing stinks if you look it in the perspective of someone who is never going put illegal music in their players. Why should they pay for what others do? What value is he getting from that dollar?

In my original post I was trying to be ironic. I know it's not their intention, It may hold for nothing in court but as well it might, and the argument has some merit.

Personally I wouldn't do any illegal downloading if music was easily available for purchase. When it is easier to pay to allofmp3 or using limewire than buying legal music. I live outside the states (and ITMS coutries) and have several times payed in ebay overpriced music itunes cards.

Make it easy, people will buy while they can afford it.

Wow the people at UMG are dicks. Don't give them shit jobs, they should be happy you help cut down on piracy with itunes.

UMG is worse than Hitler! And Saddam! Combined!

Looks like Jobs will be back on the news calling the record companies greedy.

Jobs is one of the best negotiators alive today. There is no way that he will give them any percentage of iPod sales.

Jobs knows for a fact that Universal can't afford to pull out of iTunes. The revenue loss for them would be too great. He also knows that he cannot afford to pay a percentage to Universal as that will set precedent and all the rest of the record companies will want a piece of the action.

Universal will never get a percentage of iPod sales.

I also don't have a single illegal song on my iPod or my computer for that matter. The great majority were ripped from CDs which I own, the rest were bought from iTunes or are from up and coming artists who freely give their music away in hopes of building awareness.

Music sharing actually benefits the record companies and the artists. For instance, many times a CD a friend burned me a copy of has led me to discover a band, buy more of their CDs and go to a concert. All because I was able to listen to something for free. This is the strategy used by friends I have in bands who play shows for free, then give away CDs which they paid to produce to people who go to their shows.

In fact, I think I should be compensated by the record companies for all the CDs I have bought because I knew it had one song I liked, which after listening to the entire album, I realized that I just paid $15 for the one good song which I could have copied from the radio while everything else on the album was crap. (This doesn't bother me too much now, but it made me really mad when I was 12 and spent what was a large portion of my discretionary income at the time for something that turned out to be junk, but hey if they want to call me a thief, I will do the same to them.)

Steve Jobs should take a playbook from the Godfather when dealing with Universal.

Jobs to Universal: "You can have my answer now of you'd like... 'Nothing'. ...I offer 'Nothing'. And I fully expect that from now on, Universal will pay Apple $1.00... no... $2.00 for every iPod we sell."

That's how to deal with them.

Universal dude: "Steve, i think you should give us money from every ipod sale"

SJ: roiiiight. *repeatedly pushing button to open trap door*

What a big cocksucking prick that Morris is. Saying that an iPod is a repository for stolen music and "they know it."

Fuck you, asshole.

I paid for every fucking song on my iPod, not to mention having to pay for a whole CD worth of crap to get to one good song.

It's the shit your company pumps out to us that has caused the proliferation of stolen music, you smug cocksucker.

If you put out a decent product that had the same return policies as, let's see, a car, then maybe we wouldn't be so hesitant to drop money on your sorry-ass industry.

Morris, you prick. I hope you end up driving a Pinto due to the degeneration of your company's outdated business model.

At least they're not BROWN like PoO!11

Is Ford going to start asking for a share of the groceries I haul in the trunk?

I'm not entirely sure that that's analogous. It's more like shops seeking royalties from coat makers as that's what shoplifters use to conceal items they are stealing.

Let's just hope the Zune fails, and for MS to tell Universal that their imposed limitations hinder good design. But then again given how much MS is bending backwards to please big media and screw the unwitting consumer, I doubt this will happen.

If Apples ends up paying $1 per iPod, as a 'music theft tax', then stuffing it full of stolen music should be legal. I think this really sends the wrong message.

I am still trying to work out the differences betwen big media and the mafia.

They are legal for Russians through a loophole in Russian law which seemed to be intended to allow for radio stations over cable infrastructure, not the sale of copyrighted files. I don't believe for a second that it's legal outside Russia, they simply left that responsibility up to the buyer.

Good thing that the Zune Department of Incompetent Strategy is on the ball once again…

• Start a precedent of giving content providers a share of small margin hardware sales: Check
• No external hard drive option: Check
• No drivers for Vista – the new banner OS from the SAME COMPANY: Check
• Buggy software: Check
• Big/clunky player design: Check
• Poor implementation of wireless: Check
• Crippling DRM: Check
• Only offer 30GB, not 60 or 80: Check
• Marketing strategy based almost entirely on the late teen demographic: Check
• Don’t offer a smaller, flash memory based player, in addition to the disk model: Check

True. I'm sure lots of people store their pirated songs on their hard drives, and on other media as well. Hell, Universal's got tons of targets to go after for royalties.

Next up, homebuilders and automakers. Those bastards KNOW that people steal stuff and then put it in their cars and houses. In fact Scientific Fact magazine states that over 99% of stolen goods are stored in houses or cars. Universal needs recompense!!

Better buy Vivendi stock; If they capitalize on all these royalty opportunities, they're profits are going to go through the roof. Hell, they could stop signing talented artists and just focus on gathering royalties. Oh wait, they've already done that.

Next they will be going to the CD, DVD and VHS player manufacturers to ask for a cut because, no doubt, someone WILL be playing pirated content on those players.

Fair enough man, half our paychecks should go out to the conglomerates. It's not their fault our houses are just jampacked with stuff we've stolen from them.
They need to head us off at the pass.

Now that Universal has accused everyone that owns an iPod of stealing and let it be known that they themselves are stealing, since we know that they're not paying artists a royalty for every zune sold, let me be the first to ask the big question.

Why should Universal get any money at all?

Artists have their own studios, do their own tours, book their own gigs, and ultimately have to pay for all promotional funding out of their share of any collected royalties. Universal used to control access to musicians through payola to radio stations and mtv, but now most artists are discovered through online friend networks, radio is in decline and mtv fixes cars up nice and shiny and runs contrived teenage Jerry Springer shows.

Musicians create the music. Apple distributes the music to the public at a very reasonable price.

For myself as a musician and businessman, I see no need for anyone else in this equation.

As the price of music production continues to decrease and distribution becomes basically free, the need for Universal (music anyway) continues to diminish.

Now that Universal has accused everyone that owns an iPod of stealing and let it be known that they themselves are stealing, since we know that they're not paying artists a royalty for every zune sold, let me be the first to ask the big question.

Why should Universal get any money at all?

Artists have their own studios, do their own tours, book their own gigs, and ultimately have to pay for all promotional funding out of their share of any collected royalties. Universal used to control access to musicians through payola to radio stations and mtv, but now most artists are discovered through online friend networks, radio is in decline and mtv fixes cars up nice and shiny and runs contrived teenage Jerry Springer shows.

Musicians create the music. Apple distributes the music to the public at a very reasonable price.

For myself as a musician and businessman, I see no need for anyone else in this equation.

As the price of music production continues to decrease and distribution becomes basically free, the need for Universal (music anyway) continues to diminish.